


What if

by plikki



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, LadyNoir - Freeform, Nightmares, post-episode: NY Special, pre-reveal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:15:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26833546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plikki/pseuds/plikki
Summary: Superpowers are helpful but can be equally dangerous. Ladybug and Chat learned this the hard way but everything was repaired in the end. What happens if things go really wrong though?
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Comments: 13
Kudos: 79
Collections: October 2020 - Dark





	What if

**Author's Note:**

> Oops. This just happened.

When Marinette heard the mechanical mewl of the cat toy, she jumped into action. It had proved surprisingly useful for when she was distracted by something and didn’t realise there was an akuma attack, while Chat was quicker to react. It was now the middle of the night so this meant it was something serious.

She was rubbing the sleep out of her eyes as she ran, looking around for traces from the villain. The city, however, was surprisingly calm. This was her first indication that she’d got things wrong.

The second was seeing Chat sitting on a rooftop, his face in his hands, shoulders shaking. So there was no villain, but it was still serious enough.

“I’m here, kity,” she said quietly so as not to startle him. She didn’t expect him to whirl around and throw his arms around her.

“Oh, God, you’re alive. You’re alive,” he kept saying between sobs. She hugged him back, trying to give him whatever comfort she could. For now, having her there seemed to be doing the trick because his body stopped shaking gradually until the only sound she could hear was a quiet sniffle.

“I’m sorry I got you out of bed, I just needed to see you,” he said, finally looking up at her with still watery eyes. 

“I don’t mind. Tell me what happened,” she said. He closed his eyes for a second, as if reliving something, and shuddered. 

“It was a nightmare. We-we were in New York. It was that damned fight. I stumbled and was falling through the air towards you, but instead of Uncanny Valley stepping in front of you - “ he paused, wheezing for air again, as panic overtook him. 

“Shh,” Marinette said, holding him tightly. She knew what he meant, she didn’t need to hear him say it. She’d relived the moment again and again in her mind too many times already. Wondering what if it had happened differently.

“You were gone, turned to dust and all I could do was watch the wind blow the particles away,” he said, his voice muffled against her suit. Marinette felt tears fill her eyes. She could only imagine what this had done to him. 

“I don’t know if I can do this, m’lady,” he said after a while, tears in his voice again. “To think that I could have hurt you, with no way to reverse things… It’s going to kill me too.”

She shivered. There were so many things they didn’t know about their powers. So many things Master Fu hadn’t told her out of prudence or fear of overwhelming her. She didn’t want to think about it, but she had to. What if he hit her with Cataclysm? Would the earrings disintegrate too? Would her Lucky Charm still work if she was gone? Could the damage be reversed?

“This is not going to happen,” she said, trying to sound more confident than she felt.

“But I’m like a lethal weapon! Once charged, so many things can go wrong!”

“Don’t think about it like that,” she said. “Your power helps us defeat the villains. As everything else, it can be dangerous. Superpowers are no child’s play, we’ve always known this. We also don’t know the full extent and limitations of ours. So we have to hope that there is some protection in place. You’re my partner. We’re meant to fight together. There has to be a way for me to be safe from you.”

She felt him flinch and rushed to make this sound less as if she needed to be protected from him.

“I’m not afraid of you! I know you’ll never hurt me. But accidents happen, so we have to hope for the best. It’s dangerous but this is our duty. We have to accept it.”

“I needed to see you, to know you’re alright,” he said, still clinging to her for dear life.

“It’s ok. You can call me anything you need me. I-I have nightmares too. And there is no one I can talk to about them. So let’s make a deal. If it’s very bad, we call each other without hesitation. We can deal with this together.”

“Thank you. Can you stay for a while?”

“Of course, kitty, I’m here,” she said. She doubted she would be able to fall asleep anyway. Not after the images he’d planted in her mind. It was better to be there with him and at least feel the comfort of his presence, while trying to erase those horrible “what if” scenarios from her mind. 

**Author's Note:**

> I've always believed that they are plagued by nightmares after everything they've been through. This is just one more thing added to the fears they already have.
> 
> Written as part of the October event on the [ Miraculous Fanworks Discord](https://discord.gg/mlfanworks) \- Dark Month.


End file.
